Adieu to Bali and Off to America!

Greetings from Seoul, Korea! We are headed home on schedule due to arrive in Nashville Thursday at 1:20 pm. Wednesday, our final day in Bali, we left our pleasant retreat in Ubud and rode with Aron, Hapny and sweet Sofie thirty minutes south to the rural location of Green school, where we spent much of the day. What an impressive hub of activity that place is. Bamboo is everywhere in all the construction and furnishings, an architect’s or designer’s showcase. It rained some in the morning, but ceased by midday to our relief. We observed Sofie in her “pre-k prep” program for the younger than 4-year-old kiddos. Sofie is the youngest class member at two-and-a-half, but she eagerly participated and knew the words of the songs at circle time. Her class and the entire school is a virtual United Nations of families from many different countries. We at home grown, home cooked Indonesian style lunch and after touring campus spent the remainder of the time in the common area, which was a coffee shop and a deli in separate open air bamboo huts. It’s where the parents hang out and we enjoyed chatting with several.

When Aron’s work day ended, we drove to a shop of hand crafted furniture and household items, beautiful works of art really. The wood furniture in Indonesia is amazing in its wood quality, design, construction and sturdiness. Hapny surprised us by insisting we accept small handmade gifts she bargained for with the owner/artisan. Hapny is a skillful negotiator in getting substantially better prices for objects than we ever could have on our own. Bargaining is a way of life there.

Next we drove to the beach at Sanur very near where we spent our first two nights in Bali. We dined on Italian food at a pleasant surfside restaurant and then strolled the beach soaking up the last bit of Bali beach ambience before driving to Denpasar and the airport where we said our good-byes to our host family and then boarded our flight at 1:30 am Thursday local time. We will fly next to Chicago, leaving shortly and hope to snooze on the long transoceanic leg of our journey home.

It has been a fantastic two weeks with virtually no problems and only minor scares with an irascible water buffalo and a bold thieving monkey. Thanks everyone for following our excellent adventure!